Telangana: Power rate set to go up.

Discoms plan to shrink slabs for getting extra income.

The companies are working out tariff hike proposals, which will be submitted to the TS Electricity Regulatory Commission before January 31.

Hyderabad: Telangana Power Distribution Companies (TSSPDCL and TSNPDCL) are planning to improve their revenue losses by increasing power cost slabs, which will automatically hike power cost for heavy consumers.

According to official causes, the distribution corporations, which are also called discoms, could bring down the yearly slab limit from existing 900 units to 600 units.

However, it leftovers to be seen whether the increased charges will be relevant from February or March though there are signs that the government may allow the new price structure from the new financial year (2017-18) starting April 1.

This would mean that those consuming above 600 units per year would be placed in next advanced slab and a power tariff of Rs 2.45 per unit will be collected from them as against Rs 1.45 at present. It is appraised that this move would increase the problem on 3.5 lakh clients and reduces the power subsidy for a large chunk of the poor.

The discoms had adopted a related policy during the last financial year when they placed consumers in the next higher category, those who used more than 900 units.

For example, a consumer will have to pay a bill of Rs 72.5 per month, if he used 600 units per Annam at the rate of Rs 1.45 per unit at existent.

If he used even one unit further than 600 units, he would be placed in next higher slab, where he will be charged Rs 2.45 per unit of power. This will raise his monthly power bill from Rs 72.5 to Rs 122.50.

The corporations are working out tariff hike offers, which will be given into the TS Electricity Regulatory Commission before January 31.

Though the unique deadline to submit the hike offers had ended on December 31, the discoms required some more time in the wake of the Telangana government’s conclusion to join the Central government’s UDAY scheme to make discoms ‘debt-free’. The MoU to this effect was signed with the Centre on January 4.

Since the government took over the entire debt burden of discoms amounting to Rs 11,897 crore under the UDAY system, it is not in a place to bear any more subsidy problem. Because of this, the discoms are scheduling to recover future revenue damages from the consumers.

The discoms also need more cash as they have been buying power from remote producers across the country to make available 24×7 power supply to domestic and industrial areas and nine-hour-long free power to the cultivation sector. They are suffering losses as they are purchasing as high as Rs 5.25 per unit to purchase the power.